I am not sure what news paper will be in a few years. Nobody is paying for news paper and nobody is reading them in paper. We read them on line. Amazon is developing Kindle for newspaper. I am not sure if I will buy one.

This is the full letter from Atlanta.com:

Atlanta.com is going local, however, we will still focus heavily on our
visitor and tourism portal. We are offering independent contractor home
based business opportunities for writers, reporters to produce articles
and content for our official Website Atlanta.com and the surrounding
areas. Below is a chart and categories along with our offer for payment
for these services.

You have two opportunities to be paid, one for pure content and the other
sales. You will be paid like we do for all our services based on the Gross
not the net. If the section/category you write for earns $100k in gross
advertising sales and you provide only content, we pay you $20k, if you
also sell all advertisers into the site, you will be paid an additional
30% or $50k. In other words, we pay you 20% for any and all advertising
that ends up in your section, which is sold by our in-house sales team.
Any sales that you make, you will be paid an additional 30% on top of your
20% - total 50%. We will consider exclusive category content, sales and
marketing agreements with everyone depending on their abilities and
motivations. You will be hired as an independent contractor and will be
responsible for your own expenses, which should be very low as a home
based internet business.

Atlanta.com, like many other Internet companies are simply moving in on
the opportunity to fill the gap of the decline of the newspaper industry,
due to high cost, limited circulation and the Internet as the replacement
for this and many other old traditional outdated Local Media. We are
simply eliminating everything that starts with letter “P”, except one
-”PROFIT” to run this successful business model, eliminated are Paper,
Paper Ink, Printing Presses, Postage, Paper Delivery Trucks, Petrol,
People, Paper, Property Communication Towers, Property Taxes, Property and
Buildings, etc, This is why we can share our profits with local
independent writers and reporters and offer this opportunity much more
than many other high overhead local and traditional medias would be able
to do.

Atlanta.com Compensation/Revenue Model based on gross advertising sales
We Offer 4 options

1. 50% gross to writer – If writer sells an ad as well as furnishes all
updated content within category, he / she writes for

2. 20% gross to writer – If our sales team sells an ad and writer just
provides content

3. Trade advertisement on Atlanta.com for writer providing content – If
the writer has a local business we will give them some free exposure on
the site in exchange for articles/blog posts. Example - This could be
weddings services, local fishing guides, high tech companies, including
e-commerce products / home based business of all types and descriptions.

4. Pay for content – $50 – $300 per article – our least favorite option
and will only be done in some cases. Note : All content generated for
Atlanta.com we either will own or have non-exclusive rights to use in
perpetuity. This is so Atlanta.com is fully protected and advertisers are
not harmed or lost.

Topic areas where we are hiring for:
• Cooking/recipes
• Sports / Local and National
• Green living
• Opinion / email to the Editor
• Local news
• Weather
• Politics
• Finance/money
• Entertainment
• Music
• Movies
• Fashion
• Technology/internet
• Health / Fitness

We want everyone to profit from this venture with us and be paid fairly
for their work and dedication. We are looking for long term stability and
high independent contractor satisfaction. The world has changed and we
have changed with it. We are not burying our head in the sand or avoiding
the inevitable and fully understand what opportunities there are for all
of us with embracing this New Internet Media. Thanks, we look forward to
hearing from you on your interest for this great opportunity.

Kent Mitchell the past Outdoor Editor of AJC again has joined us and we
look forward to others joining our team as well.

If you or someone you know might be interested in this great opportunity,
please send a resume and all contact info including phone number to
Contact@Atlanta.com.

Thanks,

Atlanta.com Content & Media Division

Today is Apr 15th, the Tax day. The above photo make you wonder where your money is gone.

There are two things make me worried. One, we are very well into the phantom economy era. We don’t build anything concrete, we don’t manufacture cars any more. We are making our GDP by punching number in computers. Second, the one who screw up punching number, got rewarded by cleaning up this mess.

AIG paying out 100 billion to counter parties. That is not the money supported by real manufacturing activity. This is the number invented by two persons in front of computers. AIG can not afford to pay it themselves tells me AIG was taking over the money printing business from Fed.

This is a true story. I got some Pizza hut certificates over the holiday season. I was travailing to bay area in a weekend in Jan 2009. I found the certificate in the car grove box and decided to use it. This is a new area to me. I search “Pizzahut Fremont” in yahoo.com. This is the screen shot:

YAHOO PIZZAHUT FREMONT

It is my luck as always. I picked the third one. To make it short, it was a Saturday night around 6:30, and it was a high traffic area with at least three good size plazas. I spent nearly an hour there. Finally I called the phone number and ask which plaza they are. At first they didn’t understand me, then they told me the Pizzhut on Mission Blvd was close and the phone number is redirected to second one, the one in Grimmer.

Well, this is not a big deal, I know. It happens to everyone and I should keep it all to myself. Two months later, Just curious, I search “Pizzahut Fremont” in Google, They don’t show the one already closed.

Google search Pizzahut Fremont

Yeah, I know, they get their data from other sources. Yahoo does not compile the data, nothing wrong with Yahoo. If anyone wondering why Yahoo stock tumbling so much, this is sort of the answer.

A little background about me. I work in a Internet firm, we sell membership to our users for accessing our information service. (No, we are not in adult business, we are in financial service business) We have about four thousand paid users now. We also let user try our service for a month free. There are many “repeating” free users. They register for a month and then next month they register with another email. We know this and we don’t require a credit card in sign up process and we let them getting away for using our service for free for very very log time.

What they don’t know is that we only display Adsense ads when the free user logged in. For paid user, we don’t display any Adsense Ads. Paid users are getting more information and fast service. But this is not what this post about. This post is about our Adsense income. We saw our income steadily going down in past few months.

We had some discussion about this and we conclude that Ad-block of Firefox block our Adsense ad is the reason. Our site have been promoting FF for a long time. All our developers use a iBook. We all hate IE. About 45% of our users, includeing free users, use FF. More and more of them are turning on the ABP. I guess if our Adsense income going down too much, We will have to ask free user sign up with a credit card.

With the stock market going down like it has been. I lost interest watching it. Fortunately, I found this picture from internet and I found it quite entertaining.

Paris Hilton is one of the most hot, sexy and storied material out there. I guess she will find this picture entertaining as well.

In the time of credit crunch, nearly all banks shutdown lending and their credit card rate is still high enough over 18%. I guess they have not heard the news Fed has lowered the rate to near 1% now. I always don’t like banks since they are the one created this mess and they charge their customers way too much. Banks have been very reluctant to lend any money to small business, mortgage. But there is one new way for small business to get the loan, social lending. Today I am writing about Lending Club.

Lending Club is the new guy in the block, and they are gaining a lot of momentum. When you lend out money in Lending Club, you are actually investing there. Let me review some questions first.

Is this investment with good return? YES. There is a good market you can earn about 7%-15% from the fund you invested in Lending Club. This is very good rate in current market conditions. Of course, if you are a credit card company, you can charge 20%.

Is your money safe? Not 100%, but you are the make the decision who to lend to. This is what is so brilliant about social lending. When the borrower is not paying back, you can only blame yourself. Kidding aside. Here is how Lending Club protects you:

1. Every borrow FICO score is higher than 640. Also you got an overview the borrower’s credit file.
2. Every borrower’s account is reported to credit bureaus as it go, good or bad.
3. If a loan is late, Lending Club will actively pursue it.
4. If a loan goes sour, the account will be turned over to outside collectors.
5. In some cases, Lending Club will take direct legal action against borrower

To whom you invest the money? This is a tough question. I personally choose the one has a higher credit score and rent a place. This way I am sure they will not brought down by depressed housing value. Then I read their stories and feel the stories. If the story is convincing enough, and I feel connected enough, I will make s small investment there. In the end, that is good interest rate, beat my Amboy Direct.

Good Luck to you all if you actually sign up as a lender in Lending Club.

Finding a mortgage can be very difficult, time consuming, and confusing. Although it is another decision to make among many when purchasing a property, it is a significant decision. Obviously, when looking for a mortgage, the lower the interest rate, the quicker that you will be able to pay off your mortgage. Also, with lower interest you will end up paying less money to the bank. As a result, you should look for a cheap mortgage, with low interest.

If you are currently a homeowner, but are looking for options that allow you to consolidate some of your other debt into a mortgage, you should consider a remortgages. Remortgages are intending for this purpose and may allow you to lower your monthly debt repayments. Remortgage rates can be lower than other higher interest options, which again will decrease your borrowing costs in the long run. Remortgage options may also allow you to improve your existing credit, as long as you consistently pay the remortgage payment. There are even bad credit remortgage options, for people who really need to get high interest creditors off their backs. As with all mortgage options, remortgage interest rates will vary by lender and based on your credit. For many people, this option may really be the best way to stop the unrelenting creditors.

Whether a mortgage or remortgage, it is important to really compare your options. Look at both the interest rate, and the applicable conditions. Find the option that meets your needs, and will allow you to pay off your house, and get out of debt sooner; however, make sure that the monthly payments are feasible, as you do not want to end up in a situation where you cannot make the payments. Do your research, ask a lot of questions, and talk to an expert before you sign on the dotted line.